


Lightsabers & Swords: No Innocent Lefts

by AnnaCipactli12



Series: Path to Destiny [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV), Star Wars - All Media Types, The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Family Angst, Family Drama, Friendship, Gen, complicated relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:33:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaCipactli12/pseuds/AnnaCipactli12
Summary: Companion three-shot piece to Path to Destiny series (I suggest you read that first). After Anakin loses the last person who has helped retain his sanity all these years, he goes into a deep depression and heads down a dark path that takes him back to Mortis where he finds the answers he has been looking ever since his mother died. But for every action, there is a reaction.





	1. They don't come back the same

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired after re-reading Pet Sematary by Stephen King (I highly recommend that book. I loved the movie but nothing beats the original work), Hellraiser (I will be relying mostly on the first two movies and the work that inspired it, as well as the conclusion to the hell priest in Clive Barker's last book of the series 'the Scarlet Gospels') and the shadow of Insmouth by HP Lovecraft.

_“The smell of dead is all around_  
and at night when the cold winds blow  
no one cares, nobody knows …”  
~ **Pet Sematary by Ramones**

They had taken what he loved the most in the world. He didn’t care for the consequences anymore. He set the first two victims on fire. He watched as the flames danced around them, screaming, begging him to stop. Then moved to the other pyre. This was carefully arranged in a way that it formed two circles intertwine and what appeared to be a snake totem in the middle of a body. Two figures were tied there.

“It is not your pleas I want.” He told them. He wasn’t seeking their forgiveness or approval. He wanted more than seeing them writhing in pain and the flames consume them until they were nothing but ash. He had seen firsthand when he was a boy, before they burned Qui-Gon’s corpse, how long it took for a human body to turn to ash. Today it would take longer but he was patient. He had grown very patient since his descent to darkness. Stepping into where the totem he had built for **_her_** was, he took out a dagger and cut his hand and let the blood flow on top of it then he walked back to the front of his marvelous design, facing his last victims.

 _They will be the ones to breathe life into **her.**_ It felt ironic that the people responsible for his loss would be the ones who’d help him get **_her_** back.

“A man who can’t bring his enemies to justice can’t consider himself a man. You taught me that when I was a young man. Now you get to see justice delivered by my hand. Do you want to know how she cried, how she lamented that she would never see her baby grow? I can tell you but worry not because I have learned through what the New Republic has taken from Jakku’s laboratories, of the secrets that the Sith didn’t want the Jedi to learn. Some of these secrets were privy to Daenerys Targaryen. You remember Daenerys, don’t you for you were the ones responsible for convincing her followers that she was their messiah. What is it that you saw in her?”

As the man began to scream as the flames began to reach his feet and then spread all across his body; he smiled and resumed with his sermon. “I know. You believed that she could help me fulfill the prophecy. It is cute. You, the man who believed in a secular government, supporting someone everyone believed was a messiah.” He chortled. “Ruweee … Ruwee, it is alright. It will be momentary then you will feel nothing. Many who have been brought back say that there is nothing but darkness. The reason for this is because they are weak in the Force or they have been horrified what they have seen once they’ve crossed over to the other side.”

“You are a monster and a dastardly bastard.” He smirked and turned to the woman. “Ah the lady with the heart of stone speaks. I could not find your daughter but rest assured, I will not hunt her down but the New Republic will continue until they find her and they will take her and the babe that Hux adopted as his own. There will be no mercy for her.”

“Do you think you can intimidate me, Lord Vader? You are and always will be a bastard. I descend from strong men and women who have earned everything they have due to loyalty -something you are unfamiliar with. My bones will rot and there will be nothing left of me to confirm future generations of my existence but mark my words: my daughter and the heir she bore will carry out my vengeance. They will destroy your son. Go ahead, burn me and trust that your boy will bring a new era of peace and prosperity along with your daughters -that is if they can get pass the many two-faced senators and young leaders!” She screamed and her scream was so loud, due to the pain she began to feel as the fire touched her skin, that it made it seem like she was the only one being burned. “My Sansa and the First Order will destroy them. Mark my words, they will destroy every one of them until every trace of them is erased. Ah!”

Anakin watched with glee as the flames consumed them. He waited until the sun came up for what was beneath the snake totem he had constructed to spring up but it never did. Turning his back to the pile of bones and ash, he walked back to his humble abode.

* * *

 

Seconds after he passed out on his couch, the rocks underneath the totem he had on top of her grave, started to move and after a long struggle, she rose.

* * *

 

After knocking several times but getting no answer, she opened the door. It had been unlocked. Anakin had not bothered to lock it up. _So disappointing_ , she thought. Walking into his bedroom, she found him asleep on the couch.

**~o~**

Sensing something was amiss he opened his eyes and saw her. Covered in dirt but wearing the same gown she had been buried in, she looked ethereal. Younger, even.

“Mary.” He leapt from his couch and hugged her. As he did, he was unaware that her eyes flashed red.

**~o~**

Obi Wan tried to tell Anakin that there were things worse than dead but he didn’t want to listen. Losing Lyanna had been hard for Mary, as was losing Owen and Ben before that. But having Mary die, drove Anakin over the edge.

Mary had not been the same after she had lost her sons. Everyone tried to make her life easier, including her daughter-in-law but then she died too, and she had become more religious. Praying all the time, and dressing modestly, insisting that she had to do penance for what she had done.

Then one day, she gave it all up. Leaving a recording of herself before she committed suicide, she told her loved ones that she couldn’t do it any longer. Everyone she loved was dead because of her, and those that still remained wanted nothing to do with her and as long as she lived, they were in danger.

Catherine screamed and beat her fists against his cold chest and begged him to stop her. He tried. He appeared in her room and tried to talk her out of it but all he got was a sad smile and then she jumped.

Anakin tried to use his knowledge of the Force to bring her back but it was impossible. She was dead and Obi Wan told her as they had told her when she lost her sons, to let her go. Anakin did but his eyes held the same darkness he had seen from when he had been a Sith.

He insisted on not cremating her, despite everyone saying it was for the best. Anakin wanted her to be buried in Mortis. Obi Wan and Catherine immediately protesting, knowing what lay there but Anakin had his way in the end.

Before Anakin turned his back on the Jedi, they had visited Mortis. There they had encountered a sentient species who acted as avatars for the Force, who called themselves Force-wielders. Some of the Jedi called them “celestials” given their god-like properties. But even they were no match for the dark side that took over the patriarch’s son and his lover, a rogue priestess from the birthplace of the worshipers of R’hllor, Asshai. Every one of them died, but not before giving them lives so Anakin could resurrect his apprentice. After he died, Obi Wan found out from the spirit of the patriarch that Anakin was more than just the chosen one, he was one of many and until another one was born, the strongest. But he was created out of dark energy. Dark forces had been at play in his creation when they impregnated his mother. Thus, he had great power that could be used for good and evil.

Obi Wan had seen Anakin adopt a stoicism that had not been known in many Jedi, including the calmest ones like Yoda and Kit-Fitso. Which made him more dangerous because unlike before when he was predictable due to his impulsive nature; now he wasn’t. Hard as he tried, Obi Wan could not figure out what went through his friend’s head.

After trying in vain to reach him, he sought Kinvara. Kinvara was dead but she still had power and using the dark side of the Force as her ally, she aided Obi Wan in his quest to stop Anakin. But when he finally set foot there, he was too late.

Mary had arisen. He yelled at her, appealing to what he hoped remained of her better nature but she did not listen. The place Anakin had buried her was a sacred one. Force wielders on Mortis had used it to bury the dead and then sacrificed one or more, so they could come back to life. A normal person required just one sacrifice.

The red priests loved to say that _ **“only death can pay for life.”**_ And they were right. Only death could pay for life. The life-source of one weak individual could be used to bring back another weak individual. But someone who had once been a Celestial, a Force-Wielder or a River goddess as the people of Earth loved to think of Melusina, needed more than one weak individual to bring her back.  
Mary’s death had been violent, thus the sacrificial lambs had to be killed violently. Last but not least, since she had red priests’ blood through him, Anakin needed to use fire to bring her back.

 _But what Anakin forgets is that after many sacrifices, the Force-Wielders stopped burying people there because they no longer came back the same._ So much dark force had made the people who came back to life, different. Many of them became mad and psychotic, killing their loved ones.

Obi Wan did not sense any danger coming from Mary, but he did not sense any good in her either.

Finally acknowledging him after Anakin embraced her and ran one of his hands through her dark auburn hair, she flashed a secretive smile at her father. And there he saw it, the truth in her eyes as they flashed red.

_Anakin what have you done?_ He opened his mouth to warn Anakin but she waved her hand and he disappeared, reappearing before a concerned Catherine and Anne.

“What is it?” Anakin asked Mary seeing the mischievous smile from when they lay together for the first time, back when they were young and careless.

“Nothing. I am happy to be back with you.” She said.

He raised one of his hands to her cheek, rubbing one of his thumbs against it. She didn’t feel cold or rough. Her skin was soft, just as her lips. He brought his hand down to her waist, while his other one was to her back, undoing the strings of her dress.

 _It is here._ He thought as her clothes fell to the ground. She took a step forward and raised her arms, twining them around his neck, encouraging him to kiss her. “Are you afraid?” She asked when he hesitated. He did not answer. His eyes could still not believe what he was seeing.

“It is me Anakin. I am finally here with you, we can be together again, just like what we always wanted.”

Anakin was still unsure and to push his doubts away, she said something he had not heard in a long time. “Veritas temporis et filia. Truth, the daughter of time. I whispered it to you after we made love. You asked me what it was and I answered and then you told me that you would never let me go and you’d stay with me forever. I made the same vow.”

She added: “We promised that we would always be together and then you said you’d adopt my motto as well.”

He had said that and he did adopt her phrase as his motto until Padme discovered them.

“Trust me, Anakin. It is me. You went through all this trouble to bring me back. You gave yourself a second chance. Why not enjoy it?”

Not fully convinced but unwilling to let go of this opportunity he let her guide his face forward so their lips could meet. Two things happened there. Reason went out the window and before they knew it, they were on his bed making love.

* * *

The following morning, Anakin found that the scar on his hand had healed. He turned to Mary who was sleeping peacefully. There was a smile on her face. Could this be a dream? He still couldn’t believe that she was here with him, and young as the day they met.

As days went on, he showed her the horses he had smuggled from Earth. They were of the purest breed and two of the few that had not gone extinct.

“White.” She remarked. “Why white?”

“Because they represent purity and they remind me of the tales you told me of your god and how his angels would be surrounded by white light every time they visited terrestrials.”

“I can’t believe you still remember.” Mary said. When she approached hers, she cocked her head sideways. She could sense the animal was scared and to reassure it, she whispered something in tis ear and then he became calm again.

Anakin watched it with interest, curious as to why the horse had gotten spooked when he saw her, but he pushed his doubts away once she got on it. He followed and the two raced across the lush fields of their new home.

The colonizers that had settled following the Empire’s occupation were apathetic to what was happening on the galaxy. They could care less about the First Order or the New Republic. Whichever side benefitted them more, they traded with. And if the tide turned against that side, they switched to the next one. It was that simple.

When Mary got near the village, she stopped. “I want to go there.”

Anakin nodded. The two got down and taking the reins of their horses, headed there. People hardly took notice of them, they were too busy tending to their crops and their trade. He spotted a shop that sold antiques. He told Mary not to wander off, that he’d be back in a minute. He just needed to check something out. Mary didn’t complain and nodded to what Anakin said.

As soon as he entered that shop, Mary got on her horse and left.

Inside the shop, Anakin found a large metal chest. The trader told him that he already had a buyer. But Anakin wasn’t interested in knowing who the buyer was. Whoever he or she was, he could use some of his Jedi mind tricks to convince him to give him the chest. He was more interested in knowing what it contents were. “I can sell it to you if you have something better than what that pirate offered me.”

“I don’t care about the price, I just need you to tell me what is inside.”

The owner shrugged. “Sure, I can tell you, except I can’t.”

“I don’t have time for word games.”

“I do not mean to offend you, good sir. But I speak plainly. What is inside that chest is filled with dark force and magic from the old times. The time of R’hllor.”

Anakin frowned. “You’re a red priest.”

The man shook his head. "I was brought back from my eternal slumber by one." He showed him the necklace he hid underneath his shirt. It was a necklace. It’s chain made of gold with a round golden pendant that had a ruby at the center of it.

Anakin smirked. “How old are you?”

“Not as old as your friend’s priestess.” Anakin frowned at the mention of Jon. “Forgive me. Being here has made me apathetic, yet I can still see glimpses of past and present when I look into the flames. They told me you’d come here and ask about that chest.”

“What is inside?”

“I am afraid I can’t tell you. You can try and open it. You will find yourself taking a step back and then another until you make your last attempt and it sends you flying across the room.”

“You have tried this before?”

“Many times, Skywalker. Many times.” The man gave a sigh. “And every time it gives me the same answer. It chooses, not I. The pirate buying it didn’t want to open it, but she knows what lays inside and is determined to keep it safely hidden in her cantina until the right person comes and opens it.”

“And just how will this right person be chosen?”

The man shrugged. “The flames do not show me much. Sometimes I see a face and I think it is a man, sometimes I see another and think it is a woman. He or she, will be chosen by the Force just as you were.”

“Poor soul then.” Anakin said and as he turned his back, the man called his name and he turned back.

“The woman you brought back is not the same one you buried. She must be put to rest. Dead is better. Trust me.”

Anakin grinned. “You are asking me to kill my wife. The woman I love. I always resented the titles people gave me, people who wanted nothing more than to use me to further their useless cause. Hero without fear. Dark lord. Chosen One. I gave up my freedom, saved countless lives then killed countless beings. And yet, she was the one who got to be rewarded for my deeds.”

It was the first time that Anakin examined the man’s looks. His brown hair, his violet eyes and tanned skin. There was no denying it. His grin turned wider as he spoke the man’s name, destroying his sanctimonious preaching the minute he said it.

The former Kingsguard smiled back. He told him the same thing he had told a young Eddard Stark and his men when they came to the Tower of Joy, attempting to rescue his former master’s wife, the lady Lyanna.  
“I truly wish you and your descendants good fortune in the wars to come. My offer still stands. If you want to help your wife, let her rest in peace.”

Anakin left the shop. Arthur Dayne expected no less of the ‘chosen one’. At once, he heard the former dark lord of Sith and Jedi knight shouting his wife’s name. _So it begins_. He was prepared for anything, including Mary if she paid him a visit.

He grinned. Anakin Skywalker saw right through him. Why wouldn't he when Arthur wasn't a hard man to read for a trained Jedi like him. After he was brought back to life by the (then) simple red priestess Kinvara, he sailed to England where he encountered many interesting people, including the girl's mother and the girl herself -once she reached maturity. She reminded him of his sister and the Princess of Dorne.

What a shame. Anakin was too stuck in the past that he was unable to see past the girl's darkness. That is what that burial place was. **Darkness.** _You can't undo what you did_. He had learned after he was brought back that his youth was due to the red god, or at least that was what they thought at the time. After the Empire came to be, he fled to the outer rim. When the empire started to resettle Mortis, he came here.

The locals here were amiable. He got to know them and just as they embraced him, he embraced them. As night came, he closed his shop and activated the security locks. 

* * *

There were so many places she could be. Heading back home, he found her on the kitchen, taking some fresh baked goods from the oven.

"Where were you?" 

"You sound angry. There is no need for you to be angry."

"I asked you a question."

"Anakin, what is going on? I came back here so we could have a nice dinner. I went to the market and bought some fresh goods so I could bake you these. They smell good don't they?"

They did. In her gloved hands, she held a tray of baked bread with cheese and peppers. He turned to the table where she had placed the rest of their dinner. When she had been a royal and Inquisitor she could barely cook. Spotting the cooking manual at the end of the table, he surmised she had duplicated every recipe from there. He was impressed, yet he still voiced his worries to her.

"You can't go sight-seeing alone. If the wrong people found out about you ... about us ... you know what they would do.

"You do not have to tell me." She said, her voice turning serious. She held his hand. "I promised you that I wouldn't go. I am not going to leave you Anakin and I was careful."

He relaxed and sat down. As they started eating, he told her of whom he met in the shop. 

"Arthur Dayne. Arthur ... Dayne ... Didn't he used to be a kingsguard?"

"To the mad King of Westeros, yes. He guarded the lady Lyanna, Jon's mother, during the whole Tower of Joy incident where he died." He added, emphasizing on the word 'died'.

"So he is like me."

"Not exactly. He was brought back the old fashioned way by some witch. The same one that warned Luke and Jane about Palpatine."

"Kinvara."

"Yes," Anakin said, taking a bite 

"There is nothing for you to worry about." She said, seeing he was still distrustful of her. "We are together. That is all that should matter to you."

It should, but Arthur Dayne's words hang in the back of his head, as well as of his own suspicions. It was too good to be true. Nothing good ever lasted for him, and he wondered if this wasn't some kind of mean trick by the force of some other almighty entity. Had he really given himself a second chance with the woman he loved? He wanted to believe he had, but something didn't seem right.

Once more, he cast his doubts away, as he locked eyes with Mary's and heard her gentle laugh. Like when they were young, he was enraptured by them and the sound of her laugh. It was like a sweet melody, one that he became lost in.

 


	2. Dear God and Gods: Stop making things so complicated

_"Dear God I hope you got the letter_   
_and I hope you can make it better down here_   
_I don't need big reduction in the price of beer_   
_but all the people that you made in your image_   
_see the starving on their feet_   
_because they don't get enough to eat from God ..._   
_I can't believe in you_

_Dear God,  sorry to disturb you_   
_but I feel that I can't be heard loud and clear_   
_we all need big reduction in the amount of tears_   
_and all the people that you made in your image_   
_see them fighting in the street_   
_because they can't meet make opinions meet."_   
**_~Dear God by Lawless_ **

_”One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed--as those who take to the water change--and told me she had never died.”  
 **~The Shadow Over Insmouth by H. P. Lovecraft**_

****FLASHBACK****  
  
Did he used to believe in the gods? Yes, he did. He coughed blood. At last he opened his eyes. Where was he? “I see you are finally awake.” He heard a feminine voice say. Opening his eyes, he saw a woman with red eyes, dark auburn hair that shined bright red as she stepped into the sun. “It was hard healing those wounds. Maester Marwyn had a hard time stopping infection after your reawakening.”

“Re-awakening.?” Arthur asked. Who was this woman and what was Marwyn doing, associating with her kind? Guessing -and guessing correctly- what went through his mind by reading the confusion in his eyes, she answered with a wicked smile. Not a smile, a grin. The wickedest he had seen that could send chills down everyone’s spine. Including the Mountain.

Thinking of the Lannister beast, he became sorrowful. He had loved Elia. More than life itself. He was ashamed to think of his late prince’s wife, and his family’s overlord’s sister in such a way but he’d be damned if he didn’t admit his feelings for her now. He had been trying to suppress his feelings for her but after seeing the way she was treated by his prince, he confessed to her. Her answer? A sad smile followed by a touch to his cheek and “I love you as a friend.” That shattered every illusion he had of having a life together. He gathered that if Rhaegar won at the battle of the trident then ousted his father from power, that he could convince his new king to marry him to Elia. It wasn’t like he had much use for her anyways, now that he had married someone else -someone who had replaced Elia in his heart. But Elia, dutiful, beautiful Elia, would never let go of her charming prince. It rankled him. He felt like a complete idiot.

You know how to pick them, Arthur. Then she was butchered along with her offspring. Rhaegar was defeated at the battle of the Trident and in his fury, the mad King ordered his pyromancers to set the whole city on fire. But before he could, Ser Jaime killed him, leaving honorable Ned Stark and his Northmen to travel to Dorne to ‘rescue’ his sister.

“Why did you bring me back?” Arthur asked the red priestess. Kinvara smiled and pointed to his scars. “You died for a reason and you were brought back for a reason. Everything happens for a reason.”

“You are not making any sense.”

“It is hard for someone who doesn’t believe to understand why the lord of light does what he does but in time, you will come to know the dark arts as well as I have.”

“Why me?”

“The lord of light told me to. He wants you fight in the wars to come. There is a greater war at foot. One that will pit friend against friend, and foe against foe.”

“You are not making any sense! Why can’t you just tell me what your damn lord of light wants. I follow the faith of the Seven, the faith that my ancestors have followed since the time of the unification of Dorne.”

“You serve false idols. Tell me, what have these ‘gods’ given you in return? Have they granted your desires to have your sister back, her baby, or your lover?”

He bristled. Kinvara smiled. “Do not be so temperamental Ser Arthur. You can’t be blame for falling in love with the wrong woman. We don’t choose who we fall in love with.” She said and he guessed, by her sudden change of tone, that something similar had happened to her.

“Who was he?”

“Not a he. A she.” She said. “It was a long time ago. She was a Jedi, interested in finding about the mysteries of the lord of light. She was inexperienced as I was at the time and when the Jedi Order found out about our liaison, they cut her loose.”

He furrowed his brow. “They killed her?”

“No, thank R’hllor. The Jedi don’t kill their disobedient apprentices, they just exile them. A stupid move. Many of their exiles harbor a lot of resentment.”

“You believe they should be more like you.”

“Goodness no. The Jedi Order are the guardians of the galaxy. The keepers of peace. They are the only ones that hold everything together. Although it won’t be for long. There is a great darkness coming and it is threatening to consume us all.”

“Yet you are not afraid to use it to bring me back to life.”

“It was not I who brought you back, it was the lord of light.”

“Right.” Arthur said skeptically. He groaned as he got up. It felt weird, to walk again, after such a traumatic experience. He heard of similar cases where the people who were brought back, came back as less of what they have been. Arthur hoped that he hadn’t lost a piece of his soul. He felt whole, the only pain he felt was in his joints which was the result of being asleep for so long.

**~o~**

Dayne woke up from his dream. When he was a child, he would be visited by night spirits -the code-word he and his brother had invented for “nightmares”. And every time, until he became a kingsguard, he’d wake up screaming. His brother teased him, mocking him when they sparred. And every time Arthur got back at him by defeating him.

He turned to his family’s ancestral sword. Only the worthiest of men could wield that sword and he had won that right when he defeated fifteen men in single handed combat. The sword could only be wielded by him, no one else.

He became distracted by a loud noise coming outside his shop. Not the Betles boys again. They were meddlesome teenagers who were a pain in the neck. Their parents were busy working on the hospital, to pay attention to what their kids were doing.

He put Dawn in his sheath at his belt and went for his pistol and put it in his holster next to his sword.

To his surprise, he found that it was not the Betle boys but Mary Tudor and the slut from the brothel two miles from where he was, Madena.

Mary was leading her on. Madena told her she’d never met someone like her. Typical slut talk and Mary played the fool, pretending she bought it. She told Madena to kiss her. Madena complied, but as she was about to, Mary grabbed her and pushed her back against a tree.

“Help!” Madena screamed but no one came. Mary silenced her by biting her neck, draining her completely. There was nothing left but a dry corpse.

Madena’s skin had turned grey, her eyes were completely white and her lips, which were once full and red, were now black, looking like rotten food.

Arthur resisted the urge to vomit. He had seen many horrors in his lifetime but his beat all of them. Stepping back into the shadows, he continued to watch with morbid fascination.

Mary unlaced the back of her dress. She brought part of it down, just enough to show her upper back. Arthur watched how the left side of her was completely exposed and by exposed he meant that there was no skin on her. Nothing! Her back showed what was underneath. Muscle tissue, bones. Nothing else.

Leaning forward once again, she bit Madena again. If possible, her corpse became more rotten. It was a horrible sight to watch but Arthur willed himself to watch.

After she was finished, Mary’s skin regenerated. There was no trace of blood or muscle tissue. She looked normal again. She turned on her heel, and left, forgetting all about the corpse she left behind.

Arthur returned to his shop. It has come to pass. This was not the darkness that Kinvara was talking about, but it was part of it.

 _If Anakin Skywalker doesn’t kill her, then I will._ Arthur had been chosen to guard Lyanna, despite his feelings regarding his treatment of Elia, because he knew that Arthur took his vows seriously.

What Skywalker had done was unnatural; if she continued like this, there would be no more people left in the village. These are good people, they don’t deserve this. He swore he would not use Dawn against another person, unless it was a Sith of an officer from the First Order, but Anakin had changed the rules. Once again -he thought bitterly. _If that thing comes_ -he thought, unable to think of Mary as anything else but a thing- _I will run my sword through her_.

~o~

Trying his best to reach Anakin, Obi Wan’s cries fell on deaf ears. Anakin had been taken hostage by passion and his own delusions of reliving the past, by spending the rest of his days with his dead wife.

Madena’s death caused an uproar among the villagers who weren’t used to these things but they soon forgot about it and went about their daily lives. What was the death of one whore as opposed to the welfare of the entire town that depended on commerce with every trader to subsist?

~o~

Anakin blended with the rest of the people who watched as the paramedics took the poor boy. Before they covered his corpse, Anakin caught a glimpse of it and returned home to question Mary about it. She gave a shrug, not even bothering to deny it any longer.

 _Why should I?_ She thought. _I am not going to fool him as easily as Padme did when we were young and hopeful. S_ he had always envied Padme for being loved by her people, including her mother who saw her as the woman her daughter could have been if Henry VIII hadn’t cast her off.

“Damn it Mary! You killed an innocent boy. An innocent boy. I ask again and this time I want a straight answer. Why? And look at me when I am speaking with you.”

“I am looking at you and I already answered you. It was so we could be together.”

“We are together! What more do you need to do until you push me to the edge, like you’ve always done, and I realize my mistake in bringing you back.”

“You said you loved me. Back when we were in each other’s arms. We were young and you told me that you would never leave my side and I promised you the same but then I found out the truth and you told me ‘people change. You were just another body to warm my bed.’ I let you go because I thought you were speaking the truth and I was just another lay in the hay but when you rescued me from Arthur, I saw the truth. You love me. You went through all this trouble to be with me because deep down you know you can’t live without me. We were made for each other.”

“So help me, if you do not answer me right now I will-“

“What? Put me back in the ground where I belong? I have been to the other side and I saw nothing but darkness. There is nothing but the dark side and those willing enough to control it to change their destiny. My father’s red priests thought they were giving birth to Azhor Ahai but they ended up creating one of the greatest Jedi that ever lived. But for all his talents, my father could never live up to his expectations. He put himself in a mental prison, much like I did when I became Bella. I was afraid to embrace my true nature and blamed myself for what happened to my children. I didn’t know better then, now I do.”

“You still haven’t answered my question Mary. Why?”

“Why? Are you really so blind to what we are? Look at us. We are children of the dark side. We have always been dark-siders. You want to pretend that we can live a happy life together, away from everyone else but what kind of life is that? We have been in the shadows for far too long. It is time for us to come out.” Seeing that he wasn’t convinced, she sighed and added: “My father came to us after you brought me back. I pushed him away because I knew you’d be easily deceived. He thinks that that place is cursed and the person that came out of it is not Mary Tudor but someone more sinister.”

“Perhaps he is right.” His wife would always laugh, cheer for him unconditionally. Even when she was an Inquisitor, she would always root for him, and be there, ready to help him and his death troopers with the rebels. This woman standing in front of him, wearing his wife’s skin was not his wife. She may act like her and look like her younger self, but she is something else.

“I do not know what you are and what you did to get ahold of my wife but I promise you, for the sake of the body you are wearing, I won’t harm you. But if you harm someone else then you will regret it.” He said and activated the locks on the door. It would not stop her but it was worth a shot and if he could get his message across her, then it was worth it.

Mary nodded and started making her way towards the metallic door. Before she made her exit though, she turned and said “I love you. What I told you is the truth. I am Mary. I am Melusina, I am Ben’s daughter as I am your wife and if you can’t see that now, I pray you see that soon because a storm is coming and you are going to need my help if you want to survive it.”

* * *

Anakin was tempted to go after her. No. She is not Mary. What had he done. His anger caused the furniture to levitate then be thrown across the living room. After all these years, he still had trouble controlling his powers.

Chosen One. Hero Without Fear. -They Called him. None of them ever truly knew him. He had been a boy of nine, anxious to prove himself in a galaxy that distrusted him. He ended up being consumed by the ice dragon of death and anger. He became death and the scourge of trillions.

Now his actions had caused some dark spirit of vengeance to possess his wife.

* * *

“Dayne. The brave Ser Arthur Dayne who would have forsaken his duty for his beloved Elia.” Dayne turned to see the former Imperial Inquisitor. “You visited my husband two nights ago.” She said, emphasizing on the word ‘my’.

Arthur gave her a mild grin, somewhat surprised that it had taken her this long to visit him. “Lady Mary.” His tone was stilted, yet he greeted with the cordiality afford to her due to her past title of Princess of England. “I did. I told him of what I saw. He didn’t believe me.”

“Missions accomplished then.” Mary said, her voice as her expression was bitter.

“Anakin Skywalker is a man who broke his vows so he could save the woman he loved. When he realized you were the woman of his dreams, he broke them again. His undoing has always been loving others more than he loved himself.”

“I come to you in peace and that is the first thing you do? Give me a lecture?” She gave a cold laugh. “You should have gone to the Free Cities or some other place on Earth. What made you come here? This is as far as it is from your precious Elia.”

At the mention of the Dornish Princess, his eyes hardened. He instantly calmed down and took Dawn from his sheath and put it on top of the case where he had precious items that had come from the Western sector of the galaxy. It was said that one man’s junk was another man’s treasure. In the case of the Outer Rim, that was true. The Outer Rimers valued “junk” such as diamonds and rubies.  
Dawn itself was considered “junk” by Westerners because it was fashioned out of a meteor. His family said that someone who had tried to play with it, ended up cutting his fingers with a simple stroke. He always doubted on the veracity of his family tales, but given how sharp his sword was, he was tempted to believe it.

“Are you going to threaten to kill me too?”

“No. I would not harm you. That is not my job. I am a knight. I die a knight and if I die again, I will die again, living by my vows. But you, you will have no such luck. You will die alone, lamented by no one except for your husband but he will forget you in time.”

“You have a way with words, just like my Anakin but you are wrong. Anakin will embrace his destiny just as I have embraced mine.”

“And what is this destiny you speak of I wonder. Butchering innocents. I served a mad king, I stood by as he burned hundreds and I saw one of his victims, the honorable Ned Stark nearly behead me. There is no honor, no prophecy. Nothing is set in stone, there is no future but the one we make for ourselves. For someone like you and the red priests and the Sith, it is easier to believe that everything is set in stone because things start to make sense. But the truth is that nothing ever makes sense. Things are what they are. Nobody is special and everyone is without purpose.”

“You can tell yourself that but deep down you know that is not true. We are all here for a purpose. You and I are here to serve the darkness. Anakin is that darkness. I am not blind Ser Arthur. I am what I should have been from the beginning. I have seen the other side and it allowed me to come back to convince Anakin to embrace darkness.”

“You are good but I have served better manipulators than you my lady. No magic would have allowed you to come back in this form. Whatever you are, you have played a good game, convincing everyone that you are the lady Mary but the greatest con has been played on you. You have conned yourself.”

She laughed a hollow laugh. “You never knew me. You watched me from afar. Oh, yes I know. I remember how you masqueraded as one of the palace servants. At first I thought little of you except the usual uppity servant who thought he could rise to prominence like the King’s new heretical urchins but before the Empire came to be, I saw right through you. You could have escaped to the Free Cities. Nobody would have gone after you. I certainly had no plans to go after you. You were inconsequential compared to the Jedi threat and the red priests. You could have spent the rest of your days mourning over Elia with a statue they had built for her there.”

“I would have never lived myself if I did that. Elia represented a part of my life that I didn’t want to part to but I had to, for my own sanity. You can’t live in the past my lady. That has always been Anakin Skywalker’s mistake, and so was his late master’s.”

“And you think that is what he wanted? If it was so easy for Anakin to move forward, he would have but he can’t because no matter what he does the light keeps taking the things he loves the most. I wanted to stay with Anakin and hold him dear like how we talked about after the rebels won but when I remembered my sons’ dying faces and everything I had to endure … I couldn’t go on anymore.”

Arthur closed his eyes and reopened them. The pain in her voice was hard to ignore. It made for a most convincing deception. One he nearly fell for until her eyes flashed red.

“If you truly love Anakin as Mary did, you will leave this place and never come back. No harm will come to you from my blade, that much I can promise but if you continue here, I fear what Anakin will do.” To make himself clear, he took Dawn and sheathed it.

“You are the one who will be proven wrong.” Mary said, feeling deep sadness. He confounded her with a monster, a dark specter from the other side but she was still the same girl who dreamed and hope. She had just grown up. “But you will see soon enough. You will learn the truth of what we are, yourself included. Haven’t you wondered what has kept you young all these years? Why you are stronger?” Arthur didn’t answer, he wasn’t interested in knowing. “Shame. One would think a man who has been through so much like you, would be interested in finding the truth. You have always done your duty Ser Arthur. I admire that of you, but what has that earned you? I am giving you and Anakin the choice of a lifetime.”

“Destiny is not choice. That is the whole point of fate.”

“No? A fate where you can be free to change other people’s lives for the better. Where you can live forever and see what lies beyond this galaxy. The First Order rose from the dark side. Its forefathers found what the Emperor was looking for. It is why they have remained strong for over five years and why they will remain that way in years to come.”

“Like I said my lady, I do not care.” He said giving her a mock nod.

“It will be as you wish then. But …” she paused then curving her lips upward into a wicked smile, she continued. “… once you see the truth, you will change your mind just as I did. Death is only the beginning. A frightful dream in which you saw the princess of the sun under the sea bringing light to the darkest corners of the earth.”

“How do you know of that -Nevermind. I will never join you and your dark demons’ cause. You can cite as many things as Her Grace, Elia Martell said, I will not be dissuaded.”

“That is not a quote. She said that to me recently before I was allowed to come back. It is restless. The people I have taken to him are my way to say ‘thanks’ as it is also my way to remain young. For every action there is a reaction. Magic has a price, and Anakin’s love for me was not enough for me remain here. This is ancient magic, more ancient than the one that brought you back. But that same magic has blessed you by keeping you young.”

“Like I said my lady, I do not care.” Arthur repeated.

“Very well then. Just be aware that the rules of the game have changed Ser Arthur Dayne, and if you want to keep surviving, you have to open your eyes to it, otherwise, you will live the rest of your life in misery.” She said then repeated one of her questions from earlier. “You did not answer me. Why did you choose this of all places?”

“I love Elia. I will never stop loving her but she did not love me back. Staying on Earth would have meant living with her memory and the memory of my kin. Most of them died during the Long Night, those that survived were killed by the Emperor. I didn’t want to live in the past so I traveled until I finally settled here. I got to know these people well. Good people, simple people. They embraced me and I embraced them.”

“You truly care for them.”

“I do. They are good people my lady. They live day to day, trying to make a good living for their children. They do not deserve what you are doing to them.”

“Nobody does. But that is life. It is cruel and unyielding but occasionally it gives us a chance of a lifetime. They are not dead. These people will get to live forever as energy, part of the all seeing Force. Part of it. And when it is all said and done, you can use what remains of them to bring Elia and she will love you.”

It was tempting. But he would not sell his soul to demons so he could have their bastard creation -a cheap copy of his beloved princess. His eyes hardened once again, and as he spoke, he said in a cold voice: “Get out.”

She did. Arthur knew she was not going to visit him again. Something told him that he and Anakin Skywalker would be the ones coming to her instead. Just how more people will die between now and then? He didn’t want to know because he already had a good idea.


	3. Everything comes full circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter of this three-shot brings a terrible revelation to Vader and Arthur Dayne and the emergence of the First Order as a major galactic power.

_“Couldn’t save you from the start_  
 _Love you so it hurts my soul_  
 _Can you forgive me for trying again_  
 _your silence makes me hold my breath_  
 _time has passed you by_  
 _Oh, for so long I’ve tried_  
 _to shield you from the world_  
 _oh, you couldn’t face the freedom on your own_  
 _here I am …_  
 _Left in … silence_  
 _You gave up the fight_  
 _you left me behind_  
 _all that’s don is forgiven_  
 _you’ll always be mine_  
 _I know deep inside_  
 _all that’s done is forgiven_  
 _I watched the clouds drifting away_  
 _still the sun can’t warm my face_  
 _I know it was destined to go wrong_  
 _You were looking for the great escape_  
 _to chase your demons away_  
 _oh, for so long I’ve tried to_  
 _shield you from the world_  
 _oh, you couldn’t face the freedom on your own_  


_Here I am …_   
_left in … silence_

_You gave up the fight_   
_you left me behind_   
_all that is done is forgiven_   
_you will always be mine_   
_I know deep inside_   
_all that is done is forgiven_   
_I’ve been so lost since you’ve gone_   
_Why not me before you?_   
_Why did fate deceive me?_   
_Everything turned out so wrong_   
_Why did you leave me in silence?_

_You gave up the fight_   
_you left me behind_   
_all that is done is forgiven_   
_you’ll always be mine_   
_I know deep inside_   
_all that is done is forgiven.”_   
**_~Unforgiven by Within Temptation_ **

Arthur grabbed his lightsaber again and put it in its sheath.  Too many people had died around the village. Anakin had finally realized what he had unleashed but he found himself unable to kill the thing responsible for their murders.

“If you do not do it, then I will.” He had told him. Now, as he sensed her coming, he put on his gauntlet. He only needed one.

He gave out a sigh of relief after he turned around and saw that it wasn’t her. “What are you doing here?” He asked his unwanted guest rudely.

“You were right. I tried to live in the past, I thought I could go back but she is not the same.”

“This is not the time for introspection Skywalker, the time was two months ago when I told you what she’d done and you refused to believe me. Now we are both reaping what we sowed.”

“How do we stop her?”

“There is no easy way. The place where you buried her is filled with darkness. She is its embodiment so we will have to destroy every last bit of her and burn her remains.”

Anakin gave a brief nod taking out his Sith lightsaber _. I asked Mary to keep watch over it. I promised that it would keep her safe._

_Much good it did._

He ignited it and together, the two walked out of his shop into town. It was quite as a crypt. Most of the survivors had fled while others remained hidden in their closets, under their beds and every other place they could find.

“After she confessed, she told me that you loved the lady Elia. Is that true?” Arthur did not respond. “There is nothing wrong with loving another. I made the mistake of thinking I could save one woman from her unhappy life and live happily with another one. Both of them were royals as well.”

“Elia wasn’t just any royal. She was as pure as they came. The Lannisters made fun of her afterwards and the Starks had little regards for her. I was the only one besides her brother who her for the beautiful creature that she was. I thought I could help her but she didn’t want my help.”

“But you still insisted. It doesn’t take a trained mind to know that you did. I told Padme that from the moment I met her, I knew that she was the only woman I ever loved. Then I met Mary and everything changed. We do not choose who we fall in love with.”

“Your words bring me little comfort, Skywalker.”

“They are not meant to. I simply told you of my life-story because it is similar to yours.” Anakin said. They passed the market that his wife routinely visited. They were quite for five minutes until Anakin spoke again. “If you were that serious, you should have showed her what a piece of scum her husband was and she would have come crawling back at you.”

“You must have misunderstand me Skywalker-“

“No, I understand you perfectly.” Anakin interrupted him. “You thought you could live happily ever after with the woman of your dreams but you gave it all up because of your duty. If you truly loved her, you wouldn’t have let her go.”

“Doing that, would have made me as unhappy as it did you and pit all of Dorne against my family. It would have been impossible to defend my family, no matter how much men we had.”

“So it wasn’t her you loved more then.”

“I loved Elia with all my heart and I would have killed all the bloody world if it meant keeping her safe but I had a duty to my Prince. I was bound by my oath to protect him.”

“Oaths.” Anakin smirked, shaking his head then laughed. “They asked you to swear one oath then another and they are all just a bunch of oath. What if your Prince had asked you to kill her so he could live happily ever after with his wolf bride? Would you have done it? Would you uphold your vows then?”

“I have a sacred duty-“

“Does that sacred duty tells you to murder the woman you love so another man can be happy with another woman?”

“His Grace would have never asked me such a thing.”

“You know he would have. He left his wife to rot in the Red Keep.”

“That wasn’t him. It was Aerys. Rhaegar wanted Elia to take the kids to Dorne where they could be safe.”

Anakin laughed harder. “Safe. No one is ever safe. Even if what your prince told you was true, they would not have been safe there or anywhere. It took the Dragon Queen a lot of time to die but she eventually died. If not the Baratheons, then the Lannisters or the Empires would have found your beloved Elia and finished the deed.”

“Just like you and the lady Mary did with many of your fellow men and women.”

Anakin turned to Arthur. He had a cold expression on his face while his eyes threw daggers at him. “I killed many people and I have had to live with their faces every night. But I am no saint, I never was. I have seen the entire galaxy and it is as you and I are, hypocritical, soulless and amoral.”

“What happened to you, Skywalker? Did it take just one death to push you over the edge?”

“No, it took much more than that. But I would have been pushed over the edge regardless of what was said in the prophecy.” Anakin said and Arthur wondered what he meant about that.

They finally arrived at the Church of the Jedi. The villagers believed that they could feed off the Force by a powerful force-sensitive called “the one”. But the last one this village had had, was sent off planet to Luke and Jane Kyra Skywalker’s Jedi Academy. People continued to attend. Its priest was the elementary teacher. A highly educated man who had been around in the time of the Old Republic and the Empire. The Church had many followers, including the wenches working at the brothel and the bars next to it. They believed that the Force discriminated no one and that if they meditated hard enough, they could reach enlightenment. Arthur saw it as a waste of time.

Opening its doors, they found her inside feeding off one of the priest. “Anakin. Ser Arthur. It took you long enough. You look angry. What are you angry about this time Ani?”

“Do not call me that.”

“Why not? It is your name isn’t it? It was Padme’s preferred nickname for you. Would you rather that I call you Vader or Darth?” She said giving him a dangerous grin after she wiped the blood from her lips with her sleeve. “I have missed you. I tried explaining to you what I am but you didn’t let me finish.” She began walking towards them. Anakin told her to stop and pointed his red lightsaber at her.

Arthur unsheathed his sword “Dawn” and pointed at her as well. “Are we really going to do this? Now and here of all places? Don’t you see? You were given a second chance by the eye that sees everything.”

“Do not believe her, Skywalker. She will mix truths and lies to confuse you. Remember what she is, not what she is not.”

“Ser Arthur Dayne. Always so gallant. I have no quarrel with you. I am here for Anakin. Anakin knows that his destiny has always been with me. He and I are the same.”

“I am nothing like you. Whatever you are, you are going back to where you belong.”

“And where is that? Hell? Heaven? There is no heaven nor hell. I have been to the other side and beyond. I have seen infinity and I want to share my knowledge with you. You are my husband, in this life and the next. Let me teach you what I have learned, let me show you what I have seen. There is so much beauty left for you to see.”

Her eyes shined red and he broke free of her spell.

Mary sighed. “I did not want to tell you this soon. The blood that flows in my veins is the same that flows in yours.”

“I don’t have time for your games.”

“I am not lying to you. I am telling you the truth. I told you the day after we married that I would take for my motto ‘veritas temporis et filia’ -truth the daughter of time. I am the daughter of time just as you are the child of darkness. After your mother was captured by space pirates, she was bought by a wealthy Tatooine merchant. You know all of this. What you don’t know is that that woman was a follower of the ancient Sith before the rule of two was established, when an ancient order existed that protected the noble Dark Empire. She saw great potential in your mother.”

Anakin didn’t like where this was going. She stopped when she felt the heat radiating off his lightsaber.

“She took your mother to a place of worship and told her that if she surrendered to the god she served that she’d grant her freedom.”

“No.” Anakin said furiously. His mother would never lie to him, much less let another man touch her.

“She didn’t tell you because she was afraid you would judge her and she hardly remembered but he was there. Those that worshiped the ancient order in its purest form were there. Your mother wasn’t the only one. There had been many but your mother was the only one who was able to carry his child to term.”

“My mother never sold her honor. Even if it meant buying her freedom, she would have cut her veins before doing anything of the sort.”

“Anakin, she did. But it is not what you think.”

“Then what is it like lady Mary?” Arthur asked. Mary shot a glare at him. If it wasn’t for the fact he was brought back to life, she would have killed him. He will see like Anakin, where the truth lies.

“Ser Arthur, I congratulate you for accompanying my husband but another interruption from you and I won’t hesitate to burn off your precious little village with its inhabitants.”

Bloody woman. He thought but refrained himself from saying anything.

Mary tuned back to Anakin. “Your mother wasn’t impregnated the way other women in the dark rituals. He saw where he had failed and tried a more radical approach. The first Sith Emperor used dark energy and rituals to impregnate his first consort but the ordeal was too much for her to bear but it wasn’t for your mother. She survived and so did you.”

“I do not believe you. The prophecy stated that a child born of the Force would bring balance to it.”

“And he or she still might. But the prophecy doesn’t speak of just one. You are the second chosen one, born from the dark side. Your whole conception is the product of the dark side and an ancient ritual. Your mother didn’t lie to you there. She remained a virgin until she married Cliegg Lars.”

“If I was born out of the dark side, how come I was left on that miserable rock for nine years?”

“You know the answer to that. Plagueis wanted to rescue you but he was assassinated by his apprentice. Palpatine knew that Plagueis was working with others but it wasn’t until he saw you that he realized that what the ancient order preceding his, had tried for so many years, had finally been done. You are the embodiment of the dark side. Darkness turned to flesh.” She smiled a small smile. Anakin was at a loss of words. “You can put the saber down now. I promise you, we still have time to fulfill the prophecy. Reclaim your birthright with me.”

“No. I was a tool for the Jedi and then the Empire, I will not be a tool for the First Order!”

“Nobody is asking you. Snoke has outlived everyone. People deserve to know who he is and what he did. If you take his place, you can rule in his stead and make things right again. Things will be what you want them to be and you and I can be at peace forever.”

It was so tempting. Fixing the chaos he had created and dispensing justice to those in need. But if he did that, he would be no different than Palpatine or Mace who took the law into his own hands. He lowered his saber. Mary took it as a sign he had agreed but his next comment proved her no wrong.

“I thought I loved Padme and for that I paid a high price. I only loved one woman and that is Mary. I thought I could bring her back so things could be back to the way things were because that is how it is when you have nothing more to live for. You idolize the past because it was a time when you were young and everything was possible and it is so easy to be taken with nostalgia but it is not real, any more than you are. I am sorry.”

He thrust his lightsaber through her. “Anakin, what have you done? You and I were made for each other.” She said, spilling tears he had not been privy to since he had seen the video she had made before her suicide.

Anakin wished he could cry but no tears came. He felt hollow inside. The same way that Jon’s only son felt after his sister died.

Ser Arthur Dayne lowered his head but brought it up as Mary began to say her last words.

“The red priest and priestess. M-my father … did … not tell you that …” she began to feel very cold. It was getting hard for her to speak but she had to tell him. He has to know the whole truth. “… after he found out the truth about his parentage, he also found the real reason why he was created. It wasn’t just that they planned to create Azhor Ahai; after they r-realized they hadn’t … they … had a vision of their child’s destiny … They saw that they hadn’t been deceived … the dark side pushed them in each other’s path to create him so he could find his way to my mother … It wanted me … a powerful Force Wielder to be born in powerful human flesh … So I could find my way to you … I-It is our destiny …” She dropped to her knees. “You can … c-can still make this right.” She was struggling to hold everything together. Anakin knelt to her, his eyes revealed no emotion but she could sense his distress. “You can still … make things right … help me…”

“I will. I am going to free you Mary.” She shook her head and begged him to stay with her and heal her but he brought her close to him and then with his free hand, holding his lightsaber, in between them, he ignited it again.

“Ah!” Anakin deactivated his lightsaber and watched his young wife’s cry out to him again, begging him to save her.

“I am sorry Mary. I wanted to help you. Your father, even your mother …” proud bitch -he thought, “tried … but I should have let you go instead.”

“Ani …” She said, her voice barely a whisper. “I-it is me … why can’t you see?”

But Anakin did see. Before her life-force was extinguished, he saw the truth in her eyes. The girl he fell in love with, the woman he had killed for and would kill for again. But most of all someone he loved too much to see her becoming a slave to darkness like he’d been.

* * *

The First Order had come to everyone’s rescue. Following the destruction of the village's main temple, Supreme Leader Snoke sent one of his ambassadors to offer aid to the survivors as well as investigate what went on there.   
“A little too late.” The survivors said, revealing very little of what had happened.

The late general Hux’s wife and mother to her adopted bastard son, Armitage, interviewed the women. Her gentle voice helped them come out of their shell and reveal what they hadn’t told the male officers and Stormtroopers.

“A man by the name of John Starkiller. He was a quiet man, a bit strange but who here isn’t strange. The day he brought his wife, a pretty little thing who was less than half his age, people started disappeared. I told my husband that something was wrong with that girl.”

“Did you suspect she and her husband were the ones behind the murders?”

The woman shook her head pulling a strand of gray hair behind her dirty ear. “Not at first. She seemed to skinny, beautiful but skinny. I joked around with my man ‘that poor dear, she needs some meat in her bones.’ Lu and I had one son, most of our daughters were lost to us during the galactic civil war. Neither of us had big love for the Empire or what came after it, the new republic.” She related to the regal Stark woman, her tone crisp, her lips twisting in disgust.

“Mistress Tang, we are getting sidetracked. You said you didn’t suspect of John Starkiller and his wife Mary at first, what made you and your husband change your mind?”

“My husband spoke great things about you. He met your family. His family name is all that was left to him after the Empire killed his family. Tang.” She gave a cold laugh. “If you ask me, he could have chosen someone better. Being bastard son of the last son of heaven, he could have!”

Sansa sighed. “Mistress Tang, I can’t help you if you refuse to tell me what happened.” Her tone softened and she tried another approach, one that she tried successfully with other people, vulnerable weak like this old woman who needed a shoulder to cry on. “Ting, if your husband was honest with you as you claim, then you know my family’s motto ‘winter is coming’.” The woman nodded, surprised and touched the woman was addressing her by her first name and feeling disarmed by her friendly smile. “I suppose he also told you of our other motto.” Ting nodded again. “Honorable to our fault. As a Stark, I give you my word and the First Order’s word, that we will protect you and your husband.”

She reached her hand across the cold table and gave a gentle squeeze to the old woman’s dirty weathered hand.

“My son saw her bathing naked by lake Waklen one day. I didn’t believe him. She was beautiful, but seemed private to engage in that sort of thing. ‘You must have confounded her with some of those whores’ but my son was adamant. My family descends from a line of sorcerers. I have never possessed their great gifts, but I can sense a person’s aura by looking at a photo so when I found a photo of that woman in my son’s drawer after he went missing, I saw tones of black, red, dark purple and sepia.”

“You could determine all of that from a simple photograph?”

“My father traded with some outer rim mystics who developed a still camera that captured a person’s aura. Most of these mystics were sham but my father used certain crystals to perfect their technique. My son being the hot-headed teen that he is must have taken it from our attic and photographed her.” Ting said.

“You suspect that is why she killed him.” Sansa said. Ting did not need to nod to confirm what Sansa was saying. Her expression said it all.

“I told my husband of my suspicion and we went to the authorities but without a body and anything other than a crazy woman’s ramblings, we had nothing. Finally, one day … my son’s body showed up along with other and …” her voice broke. Sansa squeezed her hand again, urging her to continue despite giving the illusion that she would wait. “… there was no way that could be him. I told him ‘she is not natural.’ The colors in that photo show what she was. After I heard that her husband kicked her we confronted her but she overpowered us. She then laughed and confessed that she killed him and the others ‘but you should rejoice. They are now part of the Force. Their sacrifice serve a greater purpose.’ Her eyes shined red and we just got so scared that we ran back and locked ourselves up.”

Sansa let go of the woman’s hand, rose up and walked to her, giving her handkerchief. After a long pause, Sansa asked: “Did you ever see John Starkiller kill his wife?”

Ting shook her head.

“Then how do you know it was her, he carried?”

“One who has lost everything knows. It was the face you see now. The same face I wore after I saw my son’s body. He and Arthur Dent carried it to a ship and left the planet. We called everyone for help but the new republic was too busy dealing with the scandal surrounding their prize jewels to care about us.”

“I am truly sorry for your loss Ting. You and your husband as well as the others will be well cared of. I just have one more question. Did you know that Arthur Dent and John Starkiller were not their real names?”

“Of course. Everyone did. Most of us who come here dearie, come because we want to escape from our past or have something to hide. Arthur wa.s a good man. No one cared who he was before the war, we never questioned why he didn’t age either. We didn’t trust John Starkiller at first but every man’s business is his business so we let him be until that girl appeared out of nowhere.”

That answer was good enough for Sansa. The ancient burial ground where Anakin Skywalker aka “John Starkiller” had buried Mary and sacrificed her mother and Ruwee Naberrie to bring her back to life was no more. It had all been burned to ash. She wondered if it was her mother’s ashes she was standing on, or Ruwee’s or someone else’s.

 _It doesn’t matter anymore._ Sansa gave a dark smile. Supreme Leader Snoke would be angry to know that the ancient burial ground was burned ** _. ‘There is power there’_** he’d told Sansa before she departed to Mortis. **Let Snoke be angry. I got what I wanted**. Lady Mary was dead and this time she wasn’t coming back. The best thing out of all of this? While she was on her way to Mortis, she had heard from the holo news that the new republic’s prized jewels were being further dragged down the mud.

Princess Leia who had ran an initially good campaign to become supreme chancellor of the new republic after Mon Mothma’s last term, became embroiled in scandal that cost her, her election and then there was her half-sister and second must trusted politician in the new republic, lady Marion Tyrell. The woman who as haughty as the women who raised her, was also embroiled in great scandals. People had lost faith in their heroes. The newer generations saw them as hypocrites, including their offspring who had been among Luke and Jane Kyra Skywalker’s gifted students in their Jedi Academy.

Snoke believed that Rhea Tyrell-Martell and Ben Solo were essential to help him defeat the new republic so the First Order would reign supreme over the galaxy.

She went back to her ship where her ten year old son was waiting for her. Red haired like her, his skin was also turning from ivory to steel. _He is strong like his true father. But unlike him, he won’t be a failure._ Losing her mother was painful but she had known pain for more than half her life and when she had given birth to Armitage she swore before the remaining statues of the seven, that she would use this child to get revenge on her enemies.

“Did you find what you were looking for, mother?” He asked, as always straight to the point. His eyes cold, standing upright as he had been taught to since he had use of reason.

“I did and I have a special job for you, my little captain.”

Armitage waited, hoping that whatever it was, he would not be too nervous and be able to fulfill it. Although he was well aware that Brendol Hux hadn’t been his true father, he was still proud of having hm as a role mother and bearing his last name. And descended from the Starks, one of the oldest royal families in Earth, was another great honor, one which he reminded himself often when he pushed himself to the limit, ignoring his peers comment that he looked weak and would never live up to his adoptive father’s reputation.

“You will get to deliver the report of what I found on Mortis to the Supreme Leader.”

“Me? But I am not a Lieutenant.” Yet, he wanted to say.

Sansa smiled another dark smile. “You will be one someday and then rise through the ranks like your late father and be feared as well as respected. Just do not be afraid, the Supreme Leader hates weakness and at the first sign of weakness, he won’t hesitate to replace you. Remember what I taught you. Everyone can be replaced. So make sure you are always useful to the first order.”

“I will mother. I will make you proud, I promise.”

Good. He was her little wolf, her mongrel pup who’d smile and kill as many people as possible to protect her.

* * *

In one of the distant worlds that were out of the galaxy’s watchful eye, Anakin and Arthur watched as the body of lady Mary burn. She was as she had been at the time she and Anakin had met and at the time she had risen from the death, young.

Arthur didn’t stay long enough to see the body become nothing but a pile of ashes. The galaxy would be looking for Anakin, not him. Even if by some chance, they were looking for Arthur, they would lose interest as their energies were refocused once again on discrediting the galactic civil war’s heroes.

Before he left, Arthur told Anakin he had done the right thing and also told him about Mary’s offer. Anakin asked him if it crossed Arthur’s mind. “I would be lying if I said it didn’t.” He said. “I still dream of her. The first years were hard but as I told your wife, I learned to let go.”

Anakin said nothing. He briefly turned and watched the former kingsguard go. Anakin got the feeling that he would see him again someday. After his ship disappeared from view, he returned his attention to his wife.

“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” He collected her ashes then went back to the ship. He didn’t know where he was going from here. A part of him wanted to spread them on the place where his mother had been buried, but Tatooine held a lot of terrible memories and he had vowed himself never to set foot on that planet again. Then there was Naboo. Mary’s sons’ ashes were there, but so were Padme’s and he didn’t think it’d be fair to place her there. In the end, he decided to keep them with him.

 _Always two there are_ -Master Yoda always said. And he was right, but Anakin wasn’t thinking about the Sith. He and Mary had been through terrible ordeals. During her last moments, he saw the truth in her eyes. Mary had come back and he had the opportunity to embrace what they were and be with her forever. But a part of him, that which always held him back, his human side, won and once again, he had condemned himself to a life of misery.


End file.
